Park of the week

43. Elthorne Park and Sunnyside Community Gardens

These two small parks are next to each other, in Islington. Elthorne Park has a conservation area with silver birch trees, hedgerow, and a perennial meadow. It has football pitches, a basketball court and outdoor gym equipment. There’s a children’s play area, including one of the tyre swings that Jack likes. It wasn’t really big enough and he managed to get stuck in it trying to climb off, but fortunately I managed to release him. There are toilets but no café.

An interesting feature in the park is the walled Philip Noel Baker Peace Garden, Japanese in style, with square ponds and rose beds and a statue of  Baron Philip Noel-Baker (1889-1982), a Nobel Peace Prize winning politician. He was active as an MP, advocating for worker’s rights, the removal of occupying forces from countries in peacetime, and the rights of refugees. In 1979, he co-founded the World Disarmament Campaign. Near the Peace Garden is a sculpture showing an African mask, by Yoruba artist Emmanuel Taiwo Jegede, who studied in London in the 1970s. 

Because of the lack of open space many small community gardens grew up in Islington from the 1970s on, created and maintained by local residents on sites made derelict by the Blitz and redevelopment. Sunnyside Community Gardens was opened in 1978 and has been described as a massive back garden for local people living in flats with no or very small gardens.  It has a long history of providing therapeutic horticulture for people with disabilities, and those recovering from illness. It has an organic garden and a wildlife pond and has been designated as a site of importance for nature conservation.

Volunteer gardeners also garden in the formal Peace Garden in Elthorne Park. The Hazellville Road end of Sunnyside has been developed into a special family garden, for those with small children to enjoy. The garden can be closed off from dogs and has a colourful child and wildlife friendly planting scheme.

There isn’t a car park, but space can be found on the nearby streets.

Judith Field
 

Elthorne Park and Sunnyside Community Gardens, 23 Hazellville Rd, London N19 3NF